The selection of the Urbanna Oyster Festival Queen and Little Miss Spat competition is a long-standing tradition that dates back to 1960. What would become the Urbanna Oyster Festival was only four years old when the first Oyster Festival Queen and Little Miss Spat were crowned on a flatbed trailer on the day of the festival.
As the Oyster Festival has evolved over the years, so has the selection of the Queen and Little Miss Spat (a spat is a baby oyster). What was once a beauty pageant is now a scholarship-based competition for the Queens. The Queen contestants must be high school seniors and residents of Middlesex County. Each Queen contestant mentors a first-grade contestant as her Little Miss Spat.
The Queen and Little Miss Spat competition starts early in the spring and extends until the crowning takes place on Friday of the Oyster Festival. The Queens are judged in five areas: individual community service project, individual judges’ interview, academic achievement, a spontaneously written response to a random question, and overall participation in the competition.
